Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

“But what about the lurkers?”

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

So very ready.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

T R E 4 5 O N

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Sometimes the world just tells you your cat is here.

To the privileged, equality seems like oppression.

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

In my day, never was longer.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it is a trap.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Too little, too late, ftfnyt. fuck all the way off.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

You are here: Home / Pet Blogging / Cat Blogging / Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Cats Down Under

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Cats Down Under

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mtrowel gambit n stormy

From overseas correspondent The Mighty Trowel:

I’ve spent years looking at cat rescue threads and seeing photos of peoples lovely babies on BJ while feeling extremely jealous. I’m finally in a secure enough job and have a house that’s big enough that about a month ago I got 2 lovely cats at the local RSPCA.

Storm is the grey tabby and Gambit is the ginger floof (they came with the names and we liked them). They’re about 1 year old brothers (neutered OFC!) and we’re keeping them as indoor cats – to protect them and to protect the native fauna – cats do a lot of damage to Australian wildlife (e.g.).

They’re really sweet boys: both like to be carried and cuddled, they don’t bite or claw and they follow us around the house – they always take their afternoon naps in the rooms we’re occupying. Stormy is a very adventurous little trouble maker (my partner has taken to calling him Pesty) who likes to jump onto high things (including the tops of doors, from which he’s had to be rescued twice) and Gambit is a total lap cat who’s never happier than when he’s cuddling and licking your hand. So far, in true cat form, their favourite toy isn’t one of the ones we purchased but is a wine cork they can roll around on the wooden floors. One of the best parts of adopting these boys is getting to watch their personalities slowly unfurl as they become more and more comfortable in my house.

I’ve attached some pics (which feature some bits of my partner as well) – my phone isn’t great at catching them in action, and some of the fuzz is worthy of John Cole, but I hope they’re enough to show what lovely silly boys I’ve brought into my life.

***********
Apart from enjoying a moment of Morning Cat Zen, what’s on the agenda for the day?

mtrowel stormy

mtrowel gambit

mtrowel stormy n gambit

Reader Interactions

159Comments

  2. 2.

    sempronia

    What a luxuriant tail Gambit has! They are lovely kitties.

    Any news from Marc about his brood?

  3. 3.

    Baud

    Cruz got over 50% in Utah, which means he got all of Utah’s delegates. A contested convention creeps ever closer.

  4. 4.

    raven

    Oh, don’t delay. Joe is warming up to tell us how “strangely disconnected” Obama is.

  7. 7.

    raven

    Hahaha, reports from Brussels indicate that most people in Belgium expected this and are going about their daily lives.

  13. 13.

    raven

    This is fucking hilarious. Joe is probing “interrogation techniques” that we can’t use even when they had a “prime suspect” for four days. Then he said he didn’t mean torture, he mean things like sleep deprivation. So he’s pissed that we didn’t use “techniques” that would have gotten actionable intel that might have prevented the bombings . . .4 days after the capture of the Paris operative. So sleep deprivation works overnight?

  17. 17.

    raven

    The sole surviving suspect of the worst terror attack in Belgium’s history was arrested on Wednesday, Belgian media said.

    Najim Laachraoui had been on the run from authorities after bombs exploded inside a Brussels airport and subway station on Tuesday, killing 34 people and injuring nearly 200. Police released photos of him and the two other suspected attackers, who died in suicide bombings.

  20. 20.

    Baud

    @raven:

    If I wanted to torture a Juicer for information, I’d shut down the server here until you spilled the beans.

  21. 21.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @raven:

    Then he said he didn’t mean torture, he mean things like sleep deprivation.

    Hey Joe, wanna give it a try?

  23. 23.

    Patricia Kayden

    @raven: Did Joe mean “uppity”?

    Anyways, cute cats! Cats in the morning is always a great way to start a new day.

  26. 26.

    Mustang Bobby

    Trump is threatening to “spill the beans” on Ted Cruz’s wife. I assume he is talking about her work at Goldman Sachs, although with him you never know.

    Yeah, this is exactly what the Founding Fathers had in mind.

  28. 28.

    raven

    New York City Police Chief Bill Bratton denounced Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) proposal for increased “patrols” against Muslim communities, Capital New York reported.

    “I would remind the senator that he lives in the United States of America, and the statements he made today is why he’s not gonna become the president of this country,” Bratton said during a joint press conference with Mayor Bill de Blasio. “We don’t need a president that doesn’t respect the values that form the foundation of this country.”
    Both de Blasio and Bratton pointed out that the NYPD has more than 900 active Muslim officers.

    “I have over 900 very dedicated officers in this department, many of whom do double duty,” Bratton said. “They serve as active duty members of the U.S. Military in combat, something the senator has never seen.”

  35. 35.

    satby

    Beautiful kitties Mighty Trowel! Congrats on your new arrivals and thanks for rescuing them, they look adorable.

  37. 37.

    Keith G

    I know it doesn’t always work out this way, but eight years ago I adopted two littermates and have been so impressed by the way they have bonded to each other. The girls have quite different personalities and often will compete with each other, but they enjoy (seemingly) playing together and enjoy cold night kitty pile cuddles.

  38. 38.

    JPL

    Congrats to you and your new family. They are beautiful creatures.

    @raven: Joe will soon scold Bratton for politicizing this.

  40. 40.

    satby

    And, since it’s an open thread,the arrangements are all set for the girls and I to head down south on our spring break road trip. On the list: Mammoth Cave, the Hermitage, Lookout Mountain, and the MLK Historical Site; I plan on hitting two each on the way down and back.
    Unfortunately, my mother has taken a turn for the worse, and may be in assisted living by the time we get to Florida. If so, she will be in a place closer to my sister in Winter Garden, not near her home in St. Petersburg. Which may mean that that’s where I will end up when I move.

  44. 44.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Mustang Bobby: Read on LGF that Mrs. Cruz had suffered depression when the family moved to Texas. Trump is classy enough to try to embarass Ted for his wife’s medical condition, so that may be what he’s going to “spill”.

  47. 47.

    TheMightyTrowel

    @satby: thanks they’re pretty assume little fellows! Sounds like an amazing trip you have planned – how long will you be on the road?

  52. 52.

    PurpleGirl

    Mighty Trowel: Lovely kitties. All my best for them, you and your partner. A kitten foster parent who has a kitten cam has said “My favorite breed is rescue.”

    Satby: Hope all goes well on your trip and that the girls enjoy seeing more the country.

  53. 53.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    Gallup Poll — March 17-19 — President Obama Job Approval

    Approve………….52%
    Disapprove…….44%

    *

    NBC/WSJ Poll — March 3-6 — Donald Trump Approval

    Approve………….25%
    Disapprove…….64%

  54. 54.

    Elizabelle

    @raven: Didn’t even make it to Joe. Mika earned her timeout before 5:54 a with her “critics are saying” and she reaches back for “and when James Foley was beheaded, Obama went out and played golf.” Off went the TV.

    But you got me to check back in, although don’t like hatewatching during vacay: and

    Joe Scarborough himself: and looks like he’s broadcasting from a shower stall outfitted with neon: “Donald Trump did not rise out of nowhere. Donald Trump rose out of Barack Obama’s weakness …”

    the remote: *click*

    Clicked back on a minute later, out of sheer curiosity, and there’s Mika with a breaking news banner: Critics Say [something about Obama being aloof, whatevs].

    MSNBC is parody performance art, and not good stuff.

    Now Giuliani is on re Pres. Obama’s Reaction to Terror Strikes.

    Anyone who did not think NBC is in the tank for the GOP. Fuck ’em.

    Now Giuliani asks us to “imagine if there was picture of the President of France laughing during 9-11. Imagine.”

    Yes. Imagine that. They ask you to do that regularly, on Fox News. Giuliani just asked you to do that on an NBC product.

    And who are these critics? Republicans? Belgians? The French? The main thing I noticed was overhearing no conversations whatsoever yesterday about the Belgian bombings. (Again, on vacay. But around a lot of people.) This is a talking point straight from the RNC playbook.

    Fuck NBC.

  55. 55.

    satby

    Thanks everyone, the girls are excited. The exchange service funds enough for “enrichment” activities that it’s paying for the car rental and one of the nights on the road, which is the only way we’re able to do it.
    @Mustang Bobby: LOL

  56. 56.

    Elizabelle

    @satby: Have a great one. I liked Mammoth Cave a lot. And there was a great old guy who carves handmade bird houses, on the approach road. Very affordable and charming. [ETA: Not the park’s actual approach road, but as you are making your way there, within just a few miles … anyway, enjoy.]

    Glad to hear you and the girls are hitting the road. How was their yesterday? I worried about classmates throwing side eye at them. But maybe that did not happen.

  57. 57.

    MomSense

    If anyone is looking for a happy escape from the news noise, there is a sweet story on woolful.com about the family cow escaping with the young sheepdogs. She came back very sick but is recovering well and the sheepdogs kept vigil with her through her ordeal.

  59. 59.

    Elizabelle

    @satby: Do you use Priceline for hotels? They’re often good. Serve up a lot of Extended Stay Americas, which are roomy and clean and very good wifi.

  60. 60.

    Mustang Bobby

    President Obama delivered a landmark speech in Havana yesterday outlining our country’s history with that nation, what we got wrong, how we’re trying to work with the Cuban people to improve their lives, and did not hold back in telling them what he thought of their oppression. It was one of the best speeches I’ve heard him give, and he did it on live TV to Cubans IN CUBA.

    … and MSNBC ran it split-screen with hours-old video of the bombings in Brussels because watching it again might make it come out differently (?)

    As they say in Miami, “arroz con mangos”, which is basically “Sheesh.”

  62. 62.

    Mai.naem.mobile

    Arizona had long lines at many polling places yesterday(shock!mostly at minority heavy places) on Maricopa county. The GOP county recorder decided to cut back from 200 in 2012 to 60 this year. There were 400 in ’08. I know Arizona has a bad reputation but apart from some normal(i just expect that wherever you are)smelly real estate development deals the actual government hasn’t been bad. Until recently that is. Gov Ducey has really managed to turn this state into a little banana republic. Some good news,in my district the Dems may have had greater GOTV than the GOP. Not sure because i don’t have the vote numbers for the non active GOP candidates and Rubio apparently got quite a bit of early votes. My district is a swing district.

  63. 63.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby:

    The exchange service funds enough for “enrichment” activities

    I was a little curious about that.

  64. 64.

    PurpleGirl

    I stopped watching the Sunday morning talk shows in 1994 when my friends moved to Florida and I was no longer spending Sundays in Peekskill. I never really had a habit of watching shows like the Today Show and wouldn’t have watched the morning politics/news shows because…. I want to keep my blood pressure in check and not wanting to throw things at the TV and break it.

    I rely on people here to mention what the idjits are saying. Thank you to all who watch and pass on the stupid mumblings.

  65. 65.

    satby

    @Elizabelle: so far they haven’t had any blowback when there’s a high profile terrorist attack. Or they haven’t told me when someone has said anything. Valentina has been starting to train for a walkathon for when she gets home, and I was a bit concerned about letting her walk these country roads alone, but she had no problems. She stays mostly in the area of my 5 block square town (I’m a mile north of town).

  66. 66.

    debbie

    @Baud:

    I just saw that at TPM. Kasich’s delusions about being handed the nomination will only grow stronger.

  68. 68.

    satby

    @OzarkHillbilly: The budget is $260 for each kid for this including admissions and meals, and they said they would pay for the rental car because it’s hundreds cheaper than reimbursing me for mileage. WIN!
    Edited to add: that $260 each does include their portion of the car rental, it’s divided by each of us.

  70. 70.

    Elizabelle

    @TheMightyTrowel: Love the kitty kat boyz. Thank you and Anne Laurie for such a sweet wakeup.

    After we were brutalized by MSNBC. (But that’s personal stupidity for turning the idjit box on.)

  72. 72.

    Elizabelle

    @satby: Hit Priceline’s “Express Deals” tab, at top right of screen. Delivers up some good deals (usually, not always).

    And sometimes those hotel.com handouts you get at state rest stops have good coupons. A friend recommended that; ended up with a nice hotel in Lexington, VA and much less than the off the street rate. (Prob with Priceline is they don’t reveal the hotel until you’ve booked, but a lot of times you can kind of guess which property it is …)

  73. 73.

    Punchy

    Indoor cats in Oz sounds like a smart thing. Brownies and wombats and funnel webs and lord knows what else. Hell, I was attacked by a friggin magpie outside of Brisbane…

  74. 74.

    satby

    @debbie: that’s why we’re splitting it up. When I used to do rescue transports and driving back from the Katrina response I used to drive 12 hours in a day. But I intend to try for no more than 9, even if we end up taking longer on the road. Or we may drive straight there if my mom gets worse, and take the time to see all that coming home.
    Flexibility is the watchword.

  75. 75.

    Baud

    @debbie:

    Right. He’s the only “establishment” guy left, and the establishment is going with … Cruz?! They hate Cruz. Kasich is toast.

  76. 76.

    satby

    Sorry guys, can’t contribute to a Morning Joe comment, I’ve always hated that fucker. No way could I last 3 seconds.

  77. 77.

    Elizabelle

    Jeb! has endorsed Cruz.

    That’s got to have hurt. Although having to endorse Rubio would have been worse.

  78. 78.

    WereBear

    @satby: I went to college in Winter Garden, the community college there. Of course, that was mumblety-mumble years ago. Don’t know what has changed, but your weather should be perfect.

    You and the girls have a great time.

  82. 82.

    TheMightyTrowel

    @Punchy: magpies are the devil. It’s the snakes we really worry about – we see slithery death, cats see a wiggling string.

  83. 83.

    Patricia Kayden

    @MomSense: That is a sweet story and such pretty dogs.

    @Elizabelle: “Mika earned her timeout before 5:54 a with her ‘critics are saying’ and she reaches back for ‘and when James Foley was beheaded, Obama went out and played golf.'”

    So Mika really believes that President Obama is callous towards people impacted by crises? I’m speechless that she would make such a comment. That is cold. I thought she was supposed to be the Liberal on the show.

  84. 84.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    Looks like those incompetents, since they don’t take Joe of the Morning’s advice on torture*, in Brussels got the suspect in yesterday’s attack.

    *Sorry, that should be, eh, “Enhanced Interrogation”.

  85. 85.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I went to a county meeting last night and the (older) Democrats can’t figure it out. They were worried about Kasich. They’re not worried about Ted Cruz. I can’t figure it out. Kasich is the most electable. He’s the only one of them who is competitive head to head w/Clinton. Why did the establishment back Rubio so long when he kept losing?

    If they had coalesced around Kasich earlier they might have pulled it off. I feel like it started with Scott Walker- they so loved that Walker beat liberals in Wisconsin- the sheer spitefulness of that to “movement” conservatives and their hatred of labor unions- that they didn’t even notice the most electable governor they had and it all stemmed from that. Walker was a terrible candidate, yet he was the rock star GOP governor.

  87. 87.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    I can see why they backed Walker early on. Who knew he would be that bad? Why they chose Rubio over Kasich, I think, is simply because Rubio played the inside money game better.

  89. 89.

    Amir Khalid

    @Kay:
    Don’t matter that a candidate is electable if he can’t win the nomination. Kasich finished behind Rubio, who isn’t even running anymore, in Arizona.

  94. 94.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Kasich is 100% in-line with DC Republican economics. His budget balancing is a fairy tale- he cut state taxes and every village and town and city raised taxes to compensate. He’s privatized everything that isn’t nailed down while starving the public sector. Kasich was Paul Ryan while Paul Ryan was still in high school.

    I think it’s because Rubio offered a way forward on demographics. I also think there are a lot of “elite” Republicans who don’t want to be associated with a Party composed of entirely old white men because that’s old fashioned and they think of themselves as disruptive and modern and not racist. Rubio appeals to how they want to see themselves.

    A Clinton/Kasich race is standard D v R – they’d be battling over OH and PA and WI where they thought Rubio could switch it up a little and appeal in places like Virginia and Colorado plus Florida. It gets them out of the rut they’re in, where they have to flip Great Lakes states or they can’t win. They need a different map, an alternate route.

  95. 95.

    JPL

    In the morning I have tv on and it’s just background noise. I looked up and Ted Cruz was on CBS and they spoke about his remarks. Norah O’Donnell asked him how many Muslims lived in our country and when he said he didn’t know, she said then how are you planning on policing them. He then accused Clinton and Obama of not using the term Radical Islamic Terrorism. I need to watch it again, because O’Donnell’s body language showed anger and disgust.
    Did anyone watch? I’m going to find the interview online later and watch the entire interview.

  98. 98.

    Kay

    @amk:

    Kasich is something like 9 points ahead of Trump in head to head polls with Clinton. Obviously it’s way early and no one has attacked Kasich yet and 90% of the country has no idea who he is but Clinton is a known quantity and that is a huge lead. Kasich also wins his races. He’s run a lot and he wins a lot. If there were some disqualifying quality to John Kasich (like Rubio’s weakness- he comes off as weak) I think it would have been revealed in the past 25 years.

  100. 100.

    Elizabelle

    @Kay: I hope Kasich ends up nowhere near the nomination. He has always worried me as the most electable. He’s banking on last man standing, and I don’t see the GOP conceding the election, given Supreme Court demographics.

    Plus, see MSNBC and NBC. They’re salivating to line up behind a totebaggable Republican.

  101. 101.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Linnaeus:

    “I think we’re more concerned about him getting out of the tree safely. And, if he needs any mental (health) help, to get that help for him. That’s our first concern,” he said.

    Obviously a white man.

  102. 102.

    amk

    @Kay:

    The polls? The same polls that predicted walker/jeb/christie/rubio as the winner?

    The guy couldn’t even win with his own party voters in any state, except his own. So, even if by some 3rd rate shenanigans, the establishment picks him as the nominee, where is he gonna find the votes in GE? The indies?

  103. 103.

    Kay

    @Elizabelle:

    I was at the Republican Lawyer’s Christmas Party last year (not what it is, but what I call it because they’re all Republicans) and I sat at the Old Rich Republican Table. It was baffling to me. They were asking me what I thought about Chris Christie. Okay, every single one of them voted for the sitting GOP governor twice and they’re asking me pleading questions about whether I think Chris Christie is as great as advertised. I was so pleased because I think Christie was over-promoted, but baffled. It was like Kasich didn’t exist.

  104. 104.

    MattF

    @Kay: It’s a serious question– exactly why have Republicans ended up with Trump and Cruz? At least part of the explanation is that primary voters (and caucusers) chose them. But it’s possible that the nominating process was doomed from the start– too many mediocre candidates, too much money and attention expended on said mediocre candidates– and, of course, Der Trump.

    It all reminds me, in a way, of the start of WWI– back in the summer of 1914, all parties expected a famous victory by the end of the year, at worst. What they got was a plunge into an abyss that lasted for the rest of the century.

  107. 107.

    JPL

    NYPD Bratton continued slamming Cruz. When asked about Cruz’s statement on CBS Morning Show he said
    “He doesn’t know what the hell he is talking about”

  109. 109.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Kay: Forbes magazine was running repeated editorials touting Kasich and insisting that he could be a surprise dark horse really early on. I have to give them some credit: he’s become a more credible candidate than he seemed a year ago. I still don’t think he has much chance of coming out of this with the nomination.

  110. 110.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    Republican Lawyer’s Christmas Party last year (not what it is, but what I call it because they’re all Republicans)

    Have you suggested they rename it a “Holiday Party”?

  111. 111.

    Poopyman

    Hmmmm.

    On March 22, GOP voters in Utah will go to the polls to make their choice of presidential candidate. But whether they pick Donald Trump, Ted Cruz or John Kasich to be their standard-bearer is going to be historically less important than the process itself in that state.

    For the first time in America, Internet voting is being deployed as an option in a presidential contest.
    …
    How the process will work in Utah is that registered Republican voters can visit a portal and validate themselves using personal information like their name, address and date of birth. A unique PIN is then sent directly to their cellphone or email address, which can be used later to cast their ballot.

    Voters can use their computers or their cellphone to access the site where the voting takes place. This can be done from anywhere. Voters can log in using their name and the unique PIN they received during the registration process.

    Once verified, they are presented with their choices in a user interface designed for simplicity. Voters can also choose to navigate the voting process in English or Spanish.

    Et cetera, et cetera.

    Smartmatic expects to process between 20,000 and 30,000 Internet votes in the Utah pilot program, but says that its system is designed to scale up as large as needed. Summers said he hopes to deploy Internet voting one day in a general election, so the pressure is on to ensure the Utah primary goes smoothly. He is confident it will based on its performance in other locations outside the US.

    “We see this as a pivotal moment for voting technology in the United States,” Summers said. “Internet voting has never really caught on in this country, but the Utah primary will prove that we can build very secure yet transparent systems that are able to handle any task, even one as important as a presidential election.”

  113. 113.

    Kay

    @amk:

    People told me the same thing about Romney. The base will never vote for him! Of course they would have. If they had joined around Kasich and knocked Trump out the base would come out in droves. It doesn’t matter now, but they could have done that if they hadn’t indulged every candidate crush the elites had before getting to a boring but electable governor. It would have been a standard D v R race, but that wasn’t exciting enough for them. They had to moon over incredibly divisive lunatic Walker and also Christie and then Rubio.

    The elites will blame the Trump people when this ends badly, but it’s them. They wanted a big win – a bold new direction with one of their over-promoted, media-created candidates and they maybe coulda got a squeaker with boring old white guy John Kasich.

  117. 117.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Kay:

    A Clinton/Kasich race is standard D v R – they’d be battling over OH and PA and WI where they thought Rubio could switch it up a little and appeal in places like Virginia and Colorado plus Florida. It gets them out of the rut they’re in, where they have to flip Great Lakes states or they can’t win. They need a different map, an alternate route.

    That’s assuming that it doesn’t matter how Kasich got nominated. But at this point, we’re well past the branch point for the alternate timeline where Kasich gets the Republican nomination in the usual manner, by actually winning primaries.

    Instead, the scenario is that Kasich is installed as the nominee against the wishes of the vast majority of rank-and-file voters by a cabal of unfaithful delegates amidst chaos at the Republican Convention. Donald Trump in all likelihood goes apeshit and vows to destroy him; he probably can’t get on the ballot in most states (unless he’s been secretly collecting petitions for an independent run while also campaigning for the Republican nomination), but he can make a lot of trouble.

  118. 118.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Storm and Gambit are beautiful guys! Thanks for sharing their story and pictures.

  119. 119.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Hah! I think how much they’ve changed just over the last decade. They once had a scholarship fund for an engineering student who was (and probably still is, I assume) a Muslim- some kind of immigrant who maybe had refugee status? I don’t know how they ran into him but it was announced at that party and a judge did a Christian prayer and then the student talked about his faith. I confess I zone out during religious speeches, so I remain unclear about this whole charitable thing they did, but that happened. They paid for his engineering degree. Now they want Ted Cruz patrolling “his” neighborhood.

  121. 121.

    amk

    @Kay:

    Ok, if you are gonna go with mittbot as example to collect all the gop votes, he still lost by 4 points and couldn’t swing any state except NC. Kasich is a midget when compared to mitt, who had wider name recognition. So I don’t see how he is gonna give hillary a run for her money.

  123. 123.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @satby:

    I hope you and the girls have a great trip! Sounds like a nice itinerary, and a wonderful way for them to see at least a few of the many sights this country has to offer.

  125. 125.

    MomSense

    @MattF:

    My son makes an amazing salade Nicoise. The potatoes are roasted and he also roasts brussels sprouts until they are crispy and shaves a few of them on the top in addition to the ones in the salad.

    Because we can get better salmon than tuna, he smokes the salmon and adds that to the salad. Unbelievably good. I am seriously spoiled.

  126. 126.

    Elizabelle

    @MattF: That article was fun. Thank you.

    Love a good Nicoise. Now I need to make one, tonight or tomorrow …

  127. 127.

    Ben Cisco

    @raven:

    “I have over 900 very dedicated officers in this department, many of whom do double duty,” Bratton said. “They serve as active duty members of the U.S. Military in combat, something the senator has never seen.”

    Dude’s gonna need some SALVE for that one.

  129. 129.

    Kay

    @amk:

    Obama is a better politician than Clinton is, his was a re-elect and this is a third term. The third term alone puts Clinton at a disadvantage. She does not have an easy job ahead of her. We are lucky they made so many mistakes and that some of the mistakes seem to be impossible to remedy because the biggest impediment turned out to be their voters and they can’t control that.

  130. 130.

    bemused

    @Kay:

    Fascinating. Are you ever tempted to ask them what has changed in such a short time from giving a scholarship to a Muslim student to now being just fine with patrolling Muslim neighborhoods? Never mind, they always find convoluted justifications and they also have had to lower their “standards” considerably with the pathetic lineup of GOP candidates.

  131. 131.

    Kay

    @bemused:

    It’s taken me a long time to be comfortable with being a political minority, so I don’t challenge them personally- as people- anymore. I take a weird amount of pride at being calmer than they are in political discussions, partly because they’re lawyers and losing your temper in that job is a loss- it’s perceived as weak because it is weak. They argue for a living. You can’t get mad. They DO get mad, we all do, but that is a failure. I think one of the things that drives them crazy about Obama is his discipline. I think that’s where a lot of the whining about his being “distant” comes from- they try to turn what is an advantage and a good quality in a President into a bad thing.

  133. 133.

    rikyrah

    WEDNESDAY, MAR 23, 2016 04:58 AM CDT
    Ted Cruz’s terrorism freakout: He perfectly demonstrates how to not appear “presidential” after a terrorist attack
    Ted Cruz lectures Barack Obama about post-terrorism leadership, then proposes creating an anti-Muslim police state
    SIMON MALOY

    News of the Brussels terrorist attacks came at an opportune moment for Republicans who are ever eager to paint President Obama as a weakling on the world stage. The bombings occurred as the president was in the middle of his historic visit to Cuba, and Obama’s Republican and conservative critics leaped at the opportunity to make a devastating non sequitur: while terrorism strikes in Belgium, Obama is hanging out with the Castros. It’s a two-fer that casts Obama as weak on both terrorism and international communism. Those lines of attack shoot right for the dopamine centers of the right-wing national security lizard brain.

    Obama, for his part, issued a brief statement on the attacks on Monday morning, saying that the United States stands with Belgium and will “do whatever is necessary” to bring the responsible parties (early signs point to the Islamic State) to justice. “This is yet another reminder that the world must unite,” Obama said, “we must be together, regardless of nationality, or race, or faith, in fighting against the scourge of terrorism.” It was a condensed version of the statements Obama delivered in response to the November 2015 Paris terrorist attacks and the San Bernardino terrorist attack the month after that: unity, resolve, calm.

  135. 135.

    RaflW

    @raven: I see that the outreach plan to diversify the GOP is going exactly to plan.
    And Jeb endorsing Cruz seems to me to put a healthy dollop of loser stink on Rafael. A brokered convention (not that I believe it’s coming, but it could be) wit Cruz as the output would be about as excellent an outcome for Dems as could possibly be imagined. Please proceed, Republicans…

  137. 137.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: Agreed. We’ve been incredibly lucky in our opponents so far this go-round. May it continue!

  138. 138.

    Paul in KY

    @amk: I certainly think he’s more electable than Darth Creepo. maybe not Trump, but Cruz for sure.

  140. 140.

    RaflW

    @Elizabelle: Morning Joseph: “Donald Trump did not rise out of nowhere. Donald Trump rose out of Barack Obama’s weakness …”

    @David Koch:
    Gallup Poll — March 17-19 — President Obama Job Approval
    Approve………….52%
    Disapprove…….44%

    Joe is of course inside the RW bubble. If he wants to believe this and propagate it, that’s fine with me. The more the GOP misunderestimates Obama and the mood of the actual country outside the echo chamber, the better the spanking in November.

    @Elizabelle: Fuck NBC. They are in the process of fucking themselves. Losing MHP, hawking more RW bullshit in an already saturated Foxified market will not save their sorry network.

  141. 141.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    But Cruz will benefit from that with the base. He put it in terms of what is a very popular theory among the GOP base, that all bigotry is “political correctness”. Cruz uses language as carefully as Obama does. They believe this. I know Republicans who know better, people with passports, people who travel, tell me that the US “lets everyone in” because we’re applying some liberal test. It’s nonsense, there’s a whole section of the federal code on immigration and it’s based on countries- which country you come from. We clearly have countries we offer preferential treatment for a whole host of reasons and no one has ever attacked that based on “political correctness”. They know this. It doesn’t matter.

  142. 142.

    Paul in KY

    @Kay: I tell my mother about the differing quotas each country has & how Mexico has a low quota & she don’t care. Now, she will vote Democratic in Fall, but just hates illegal immigration (she legally immigrated from England back in 50s & is 90 years old).

    Evidently, she just hated the hoops she had to jump thru on way to citizenship & resents that others ‘bypass’ that.

  143. 143.

    RaflW

    @Kay:

    I can’t figure it out. Kasich is the most electable. He’s the only one of them who is competitive head to head w/Clinton. …

    [T]hey so loved that Walker beat liberals in Wisconsin – the sheer spitefulness of that to “movement” conservatives and their hatred of labor unions – that they didn’t even notice the most electable governor they had and it all stemmed from that. Walker was a terrible candidate, yet he was the rock star GOP governor.

    This goes hand in hand with their inability to govern. The GOP, in their hatred of government, by and large actually attracts people too stupid, venal or vain to bother to know how to actually do anything, including win elections. I don’t like Kasich, I think he’s far, far too conservative, but he is old school enough to actually want to govern, to actually have policies (that I dislike, did I mention that?!) and a plan to implement them. He even has a bit of the compassionate conservative frame, if you listen to his speeches.

    That makes him the biggest threat to HRC in the fall, but it also makes him an enigma to what passes for the GOP elite, in their brain-drained state.

    If you are conservative and have any smarts at all, you have gone into business, because you believe government is shit. And so, we have shit-smearing idiots for candidates on the right. This devolves down to the states in many cases as well. Walker? Jindal? Brownback? Perry? (Rubio, too.) All complete ass-grabless idiots (and I don’t care about Jindal’s sparkly resume/bio, he’s self-destructed in a way that makes all his past look deeply suspect).

  146. 146.

    Kay

    @Paul in KY:

    “Unfairness” is always the best argument, politically :)

    I have trouble with immigration and (some) Democrats (and I know this is radical and will never be a majority position) because at the end of the day I have trouble with stopping people from moving around. I would walk over a border if I needed to. I completely sympathize with that.

  148. 148.

    Kay

    @RaflW:

    For the elites it was ambition and ego.I think they saw Walker in Wisconsin and Christie in NJ and thought “we can have it all- far Right state government and far Right Congress and the Presidency” so they got too ambitious.

    There was truth to it. If they had installed a blue state governor as President they would own all of government and renounce liberalism in a really profound way. They could go far Right, with a valid claim to majority of the country. In a way, Democrats dodged a huge bullet. If Clinton wins it gives them a chance to regain states and Congress. It might have gone the other way.

  149. 149.

    Paul in KY

    @Kay: I think she thinks that she was super qualified to be a citizen in the colonies (we should be so lucky to get someone like her) & shouldn’t have had to do what she did back then to get a US citizenship.

    I have told her before that if we were poor & in Mexico, that I guess we would have genteely starved ;-)

  151. 151.

    bemused

    @Kay:

    I do think it’s amusing that Republicans accuse liberals of being too emotional, touchy-feely, hysterical and so on. Then I read their letters to editors locally which are overwrought, whiny, frothing with rage and hurling childish insults towards Dems contrasted with the far fewer letters from liberals that are much calmer and rational using logic and facts. The Republicans are so filled with anxiety, I don’t know how they function in their daily lives.

  153. 153.

    Miss Bianca

    @Baud:
    “If I wanted to torture a Juicer for information, I’d shut down the server here until you spilled the beans.”

    Yeah? Well then. where would we *get* our information, then? Huh? HUH??

  154. 154.

    Thoroughly Pizzled

    @Kay: Cruz knows his base so well. Every argument of his is recognizably taken from some right-wing image macro.

  156. 156.

    Mnemosyne

    @satby:

    Hopefully your mom will stabilize so you can have a little fun on the way down. Don’t forget to blow the girls’ minds by telling them that on this long trip, they’re only going to be seeing about 1/4th of the country — only a single time zone!

  157. 157.

    satby

    @Mnemosyne: It’s funny, because Qunoot has said that we basically drive to and from school the same amount of time it takes to completely circle her whole nation (Bahrain isn’t a very big island).

  158. 158.

    mel

    @Paul in KY:
    That is an argument I hear frequently in rural Ohio whenever I voice my opinion in favor of assisting immigrant families. It does seem like it’s a sort of an “I took my hard knocks, so everyone else should have to take theirs too”, eye-for-an-eye school of thought.

    I’ve heard it coming from acquaintances whose backgrounds, behaviors and values would seem to totally belie the statement: for example, from a medical professional who does international volunteer work and whose grandparents emigrated just prior to WWII , from a parent of a lovely son adopted from Russia, from first generation and second generation immigrant parents of many of my former students.

    I had an elderly Quaker relative who once responded to an, “It’s not fair; everybody should have to pay their dues and go through the hassle like my family did!” statement from a friend who had emigrated with comparatively little difficulty (not that uprooting one’s life and starting anew is ever easy; surely it is a challenge even under the best of circumstances) and had been able to continue working in his previous profession with the comment, “I’m sorry, but people shouldn’t have to starve or die just because your pride got injured by some interviews and paperwork fifteen years ago.”

    This was several decades ago, during a discussion about refugees trying to make it ashore in Florida.

    You could have heard a pin drop in that room.

  159. 159.

    Paul in KY

    @mel: Excellent comments, mel. These people, including my mother, don’t understand that the only reason they were even able to emigrate to begin with was that their country of origin had not exhausted the quota set for it.

    Thus, they were extremely lucky that they lived in a country with the large arbitrary quota we (the US) has given it.

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